Wireless access points may be equipped with one or multiple radios and each of the radios are assigned to distinct frequency bands. For example, some access points have two radios, one for 2.4 GHz band and another for 5 GHz band. A wireless local area network (WLAN) client station, such as a cell phone, laptop, and a tablet, communicate with the access point in one or more frequency bands. In some instances, a laptop client may be equipped with one or more WLAN radios which are designed to communicate in one of the multiple supported bands, for example, in either the 2.4 GHz band or the 5 GHz band.
Though the wireless access point can communicate simultaneously in two different bands with client stations, often client stations communicate with the wireless station in a single band and once they are associated with the wireless access point in a particular band they continue to communicate with the wireless access point in the same band. As the number of client stations communicating with a wireless access point increase, the number of client stations communicating in a particular frequency band also increases, thereby causing an increase on the load on the wireless access point in that particular band. Moreover, the interference from other wireless (Wi-Fi) networks close by, e.g., within the range of the wireless access point, or other types of devices which are active in unlicensed band can change over time and the capacity of each sub-band can change over time.
Many wireless access points do not provide load balancing features, which help in balancing the load on the wireless access point so that the client stations that are connected to the wireless point do not experience a decrease in the data rates or a delay in streaming data. Some of them which do provide, balance the load by moving client stations between two or more distinct bands. The conventional access point does not provide load balancing within a single band.